(no subject)
a memory like butterfly wings (or a kiss), BTVS drabblet, Willow/Tara, R
A/N: Written for VAGFEST '09, run by takethewords and answering the prompt "Willow/Tara, butterfly." Comics-compliant.
A short introspective on how things could go for our goddess, years from now.
Years later, Willow will remember being a girl.
She is more than a girl now, of course. More than a woman. More than a human, multitudes itching under her skin, futures tangling in the strands of her hair. She is power personified and she is benevolence freely given, malice carefully meted out with a hand steady and sure. She is certain of her place in the world, though others cower in fear. Long after things burn, she will endure.
Buffy would call her a false god, but Buffy is dead and gone, free of her burdens at last. Xander, too, sleeps under the dirt, bones feeding the earth. Giles is lost among the numbers lying at Willow's feet, along with all the remnants of that old life. Now there is only manna and magick crackling down her spine, electrifying the nerves on her tongue. It is less than exhilarating but more than unimpressive; it simply is. The way the world works, the due that has been given, the mantle that Willow has taken up. The top can be a lonely place, though, and in her lesser moments, Willow--
Well; Willow thinks of Tara.
Tara with her pale silk hair, her pale silk skin, the flared hips and soft belly and breasts that hung round under her blouse. Tara with eyes like the summer and laughter like rain. The seasons spoke through her voice, the elements slipping through her hands like water. Willow misses watching the leaves dance like playful kittens under the watchful focus of Tara's gaze.
Willow reminds herself: once, there was human pleasure. Butterflies in the grass, a field of flowers and a picnic basket under the shade. Shared sandwiches and tea in a thermos, jam making their lips sweet and sticky. A tender morning under the warm sunlight, no one around and no sound but the secret whispers of two girls in love.
No death, in those moments. No gunshots or villians. Just the careful removal of clothing in the shielded grove of trees. The park was empty, and they had circled their own space with littered items, a secluded corner on a soft patch of grass. Tara lay back like a mermaid on a rock, sunning herself even as Willow's hands fanned over her thighs, her knees, her ankles. Sunwarmed flesh and hot, wet kisses, the trail of slim fingers down the sensitive valley of a back, a bare arm, the instep of an arched foot.
These are the sensations that Willow recalls when she attempts to pick out the meaning of being: Tara and her singing into the spring air, Tara and the movement of her body under Willow's own, Tara and the sob-laugh that even now spills over in Willow's heart as pure as birdchatter.
Centuries she could live like this, detached from the world and looking down at people like the ants they are. Acting as a goddess, as a titan, as an unstoppable force. But in the midst of the storm, when she closes her eyes--
Years later, Willow will remember being a girl.
A/N: Written for VAGFEST '09, run by takethewords and answering the prompt "Willow/Tara, butterfly." Comics-compliant.
A short introspective on how things could go for our goddess, years from now.
Years later, Willow will remember being a girl.
She is more than a girl now, of course. More than a woman. More than a human, multitudes itching under her skin, futures tangling in the strands of her hair. She is power personified and she is benevolence freely given, malice carefully meted out with a hand steady and sure. She is certain of her place in the world, though others cower in fear. Long after things burn, she will endure.
Buffy would call her a false god, but Buffy is dead and gone, free of her burdens at last. Xander, too, sleeps under the dirt, bones feeding the earth. Giles is lost among the numbers lying at Willow's feet, along with all the remnants of that old life. Now there is only manna and magick crackling down her spine, electrifying the nerves on her tongue. It is less than exhilarating but more than unimpressive; it simply is. The way the world works, the due that has been given, the mantle that Willow has taken up. The top can be a lonely place, though, and in her lesser moments, Willow--
Well; Willow thinks of Tara.
Tara with her pale silk hair, her pale silk skin, the flared hips and soft belly and breasts that hung round under her blouse. Tara with eyes like the summer and laughter like rain. The seasons spoke through her voice, the elements slipping through her hands like water. Willow misses watching the leaves dance like playful kittens under the watchful focus of Tara's gaze.
Willow reminds herself: once, there was human pleasure. Butterflies in the grass, a field of flowers and a picnic basket under the shade. Shared sandwiches and tea in a thermos, jam making their lips sweet and sticky. A tender morning under the warm sunlight, no one around and no sound but the secret whispers of two girls in love.
No death, in those moments. No gunshots or villians. Just the careful removal of clothing in the shielded grove of trees. The park was empty, and they had circled their own space with littered items, a secluded corner on a soft patch of grass. Tara lay back like a mermaid on a rock, sunning herself even as Willow's hands fanned over her thighs, her knees, her ankles. Sunwarmed flesh and hot, wet kisses, the trail of slim fingers down the sensitive valley of a back, a bare arm, the instep of an arched foot.
These are the sensations that Willow recalls when she attempts to pick out the meaning of being: Tara and her singing into the spring air, Tara and the movement of her body under Willow's own, Tara and the sob-laugh that even now spills over in Willow's heart as pure as birdchatter.
Centuries she could live like this, detached from the world and looking down at people like the ants they are. Acting as a goddess, as a titan, as an unstoppable force. But in the midst of the storm, when she closes her eyes--
Years later, Willow will remember being a girl.